The bloodiest siege of the Napoleonic Wars was the 1812 attack on Badajoz by Wellington’s British army in the Peninsular War. Not only were the casualties among combatants heavy, but the subsequent sack of the city saw brutality, murder and rape on an unprecedented scale.

The Battle of Oporto was key early British victory in the Peninsular War that ensured that the troops commanded by Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington) would not be driven out by the French any time soon.

By the summer of 1813 the Peninsular War had reached a crisis. The British army under Wellington was poised to invade France, but he was faced by the towering Pyrenees mountains and the cunning French Marshal Soult. What followed was a classic campaign of mountain fighting.